About Last Night

by Adele Parks

  This fact was always the hardest to call to mind. Sometimes she managed to go for weeks and weeks without thinking about his wife, sometimes she thought of her all night long.

  6) It had been a traditionally arranged wedding and a successful, happy marriage until he met Stephanie. 7) He’d always been faithful in deed and thought until he met Stephanie. 8) He respected his wife and, in a way, loved her. 9) He was not in love with his wife.

  Not in the heady, dizzy way that books and films and songs described. He claimed he’d never even believed in that sort of love, never understood it and certainly never hankered after it. That was, until he met Stephanie.

  She’d been angry and confused when he said this. And a tiny bit thrilled. She’d told him that it was inappropriate and that they couldn’t have lunch together again if he was going to say such things.

  ‘I don’t want there to be untruths between us,’ he’d said simply.

  ‘No, Subhash, you mustn’t go there,’ she’d insisted nervously.

  He’d shrugged. ‘We are there. Whether it is said or not. Say the word and I’ll leave her.’

  Stephanie had simply glared at him.

  She had been absolutely certain that Subhash would eventually tire of her. She’d almost looked forward to the day when he’d move on and yet, equally, she’d dreaded it. They hadn’t seen one another since November. There was something about the Christmas decorations that appeared in the shop windows that had tugged at her conscience. She’d known that she was not capable of dressing a tree, attending midnight Mass and cooking a turkey if Subhash weighed in on her conscience.

  Julian had not been so squeamish. She knew that now.

  So, last November, Stephanie had said to Subhash that if he really did love her, then he must leave her alone because he was destroying her peace of mind. He was destroying all that was good about her, all that he claimed to be attracted to – her morals, her values, her decency. They’d been sitting on a bench near the river, watching the ducks scramble about on the muddy slopes.

  ‘All right,’ he’d said, sighing his disappointment into the chilly air (she thought she could see it cloud their existence). ‘I accept your logic and respect your decision. I will stop calling you. I’ll wait for you to call me.’

  ‘I won’t call,’ she’d said quietly, hoping to convince herself as much as him.

  ‘I hope you do. I’ll wait. And I’ll want it and I won’t stop wanting it. Remember that, Stephanie. I’ll be waiting for you.’

  He’d stopped calling her as she’d asked him to and as he’d promised he would. She’d got what she wanted, so why did she then feel so wretched? For months it had been intolerable to think of life without him and therefore she’d chosen not to think about life much at all. Instead she filled her days with doing (she joined the committee for the local historical society, served tea at school concerts and volunteered as a sales assistant at the cancer research charity shop in the high street). Through good old-fashioned self-discipline she’d taught herself not to expect to ever feel his fingers on her skin, not even to hope for it. If she wavered and thought of him, thought of calling him or encouraging him in any way, she would imagine something terrible – something like having the boys taken away from her, seeing her mother’s face collapse with grief or causing her father-in-law to have a heart attack with shock. Steph conjured these horrendous fears whenever she reached for the phone, whenever she so much as thought of him. She was like a lab rat running against an electrified barrier and eventually she taught herself to associate him not with pleasure, but with the undoubted pain that a liaison with him would inevitably lead to.

  Now she could think of him and not feel pain.

  Couldn’t she? Wasn’t she entitled to that much now? Surely.

  The hotel room was lovely. There was no doubt about it, under other circumstances Steph might have got excited about the clever little touches, the teddy bear on the pillow and the complimentary fruit and port. Under other circumstances coming to a place like this might have been a real treat. But it was hard for her to notice the sumptuous bed throws and opulent cushions without thinking about what it was her husband had been doing in this hotel for months now, what he was likely doing even now; without thinking about what she had come to this hotel to do. The thought made the hairs on her arms stand up and prickle, like spiky blades of corn bristling in the wind.

  She’d looked for Julian’s car in the car park but couldn’t see it. She wondered how he managed the logistics of this infidelity. She’d always believed that he drove to the station, left his car in the car park and then caught the train into London. Did that mean on Tuesdays he caught the train back to Riverford, picked up his car and then drove to Highview? He brought that woman to their home town? He practically passed their door! While she and the boys were having tea, he was – oh God, she couldn’t think about it. She couldn’t think about how deep this deception was. Infinite and indecent. A fresh wave of anger and a sense of injustice surged through her body. It bolstered her and attacked her at once.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ asked Subhash. He had his back to her as his head was buried in the mini fridge. ‘There are spirits – gin, whisky, vodka – and there’s wine, both colours. Or a soft drink or I can order something from room service.’

  ‘A cup of tea?’ she said. She wasn’t sure if she wanted a cup of tea but it was the drink she most frequently requested and the response had simply rolled off her tongue.

  ‘I was thinking of something a little more special. Champagne perhaps.’

  Stephanie nodded. She didn’t really feel like drinking champagne but it might help her get in the mood. What sort of mood did she want to be in, anyway? What sort of mood did you need to be in to become an adulteress? She wasn’t sure. This was all so alien to her.

  Subhash was trying so hard to please her and to impress her. He’d asked at reception if they could book the suite. Steph had known the answer even before the receptionist had explained that the suite was occupied by one of their regular guests. Steph imagined the manager kicking himself when he heard that the suite might have been taken by a paying guest rather than wasted on an apologetic gesture to Mr Blake, who was after all no more than a grubby adulterer. Then again, what was she? No different. Besides, it was unlikely that the Highview cared about their guests’ morals. Maybe the Highview even went so far as to have a discount rate for grubby adulterers. What was Julian doing right this moment? she wondered. Was he in the jacuzzi or had they got straight down to it and was he taking her over the dressing table, one hand on her arse, another stretched round to cup her tit – just as that woman had described it on one of her texts today. Stephanie closed her eyes. It didn’t keep the image out but it held her tears in.

  Stephanie carefully lowered herself on to the edge of the bed. She wished she knew which room was Julian’s ‘regular room’. Was it possible it was this very room? This very bed? Steph felt gases charge upwards from her stomach, push up her oesophagus and erupt into her mouth. If she’d eaten anything in the last day or so it would no doubt be a dark stain on the immaculate coir matting flooring by now.

  Subhash called room service and asked for champagne and then he gently sat down next to her. Sitting side by side she could feel the heat of his body. Slowly, he turned to her and tentatively cradled her face in his two great big paws of hands. She mirrored his action. His hands then edged down so that his thumb rested on her chin and his palm and fingers reached around her neck. It was calming. Surprisingly so considering how churned and impossible she felt. His touch was healing. His gaze stopped her speaking or moving. She was rooted in his presence. She was completely unaware of the rain hammering down on the window or the sound of a catering trolley being pushed through the corridor just outside their room, she was even unaware of her wedding ring glistening on her left hand – everything other vanished. She could feel his bristling whiskers, peeping through his skin, tickling under her fingertips. Such an ordinary thing and yet sh
e was struck by his manliness, his difference, and she gasped. He felt like a miracle. She felt chained and yet free. They were elsewhere. Other.

  Suddenly aflame, she wanted to just get on with it. She wanted to lean into him and kiss him. Dare she? Ignited, he would kiss her back, she was sure that he would, even though she’d turned her head away from him on several occasions in the past. Not that she’d wanted to turn him away. She’d often wondered what his lips would be like to kiss. Never had she allowed herself the indulgence of finding out. Would his kisses be charged and challenging or soft and gentle? What would it feel like to have his hands skim her body? Would he be sturdy and determined, firm and passionate? He’d been necessarily cautious, respectfully tentative for months and months; now she’d agreed to come to a hotel with him he would be unlikely to exercise any sort of self-control, no matter how much of a gentleman he was.

  Kiss me. Kiss me, she silently urged. Make me yours. Wipe away all previous traces. Fix me. Even up the score.

  And when he did finally kiss her, she would be a changed woman. She would not be pathetically passive. She was now unwilling to be overwhelmed and swallowed up, she’d meet the challenge of his kisses and she’d kiss as she’d never kissed before, with abandon and longing. All she had to do was initiate it. Just move a fraction closer. Tilt her head, just a smidgen.

  Or she could simply reach for his trouser belt and scrabble to unfasten it. Get to business. Hadn’t they waited long enough? Wasn’t that what she was here for? She should tell him straight, clear up all doubt or hesitation. Let him know that she was finally ready for him. But she was unable to find the words that meant what she wanted to say. Instead she continued to silently will him to slide his hands up her roll-neck jumper and find her breast. She closed her eyes and imagined his fingers touching the edge of her bra, then slipping inside the cup to touch her nipple and perhaps gently circling or tugging on it. She felt the thrill of the thought of his caress throughout her body, in her heart and deep down, low, low in the parts she could never find a reasonable name for. Yes, truthfully, she had dreamt of his touch. She’d woken on more than one occasion, sweating and guilty from dreaming of his fingers inching across her, all of her – her breasts, her heart, her lips, her bits. And now, now her body hummed at the thought of his imminent attention. She could do it. She was entitled.

  Tit for tat.

  The expression struck her as hopelessly inconvenient and confusing and, more importantly, rather vulgar. What did it mean, exactly? Her tit for her husband’s tatty behaviour? Maybe. The thought made her shudder.

  But why shouldn’t she do it? Subhash loved her. He’d said so. And she thought perhaps she loved him back. Or at least, she could, if she allowed herself to. Julian didn’t love her. That was certain. He’d lied to her. He’d cheated on her and on their children. Was that love? He was at this very second kissing some other woman’s— Steph couldn’t say the word, not even to herself, but she saw the image in full technicolour, Julian with his head between this other woman’s smooth, slim thighs.

  If she had sex with Subhash now, here in this hotel, no one could blame her. It would be justified. Maybe a little grubby, but revenge was rarely anything other. It would take just one swift, deft movement. She could leap on to his lap, legs astride his body and she could grind into him. Part of her did want it.

  But such a leap would be out of character and probably terrify him as much as it would surprise her. She wasn’t a leaping, legs-astride sort of girl – more was the pity.

  ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ Subhash asked gently.

  Stephanie put her hand over his, which was still cupping her face and she pressed him so close, it felt as though his hand might melt into her. She liked his question. He understood her hesitation. He always got to the root of the matter.

  ‘It hurts,’ she replied by way of explanation. She didn’t need to explain exactly what hurt. All of it. Julian had caused such pain. Julian had changed. He’d changed everything. Everything, it seemed, other than Stephanie’s ability to kiss a man who wasn’t her husband. It wasn’t fair.

  Her throat was parched and constricted, by contrast her palms were moist and loose. She’d thought that they would pull at one another’s clothes, scrabbling to find flesh. She’d imagined her skirt gathered up around her waist. Their lips merging into one another, kissing so hard she’d struggle to compute who was doing what to whom, who was saying what, promising what. Who was encouraging whom? As she’d manically driven from Pip’s to meet Subhash, she’d been certain about what she needed and certain that this was it. Finally, the words that had passed between them, and the many more that she’d stifled and never dared allow escape from her head, suddenly seemed irrelevant. After all, it was what you did that counted, not what was said. She had always known as much. That was why she had never done this because she knew it would count. Now, they were left with nothing other than an exposed hunger. An unadorned and basic craving. She wanted him to be inside her. To sink into her. But it was harder than she’d imagined. Would it be totally different? Or just the same?

  With her eyes closed she leant forward and finally kissed him, not wanting to see but needing to feel. He kissed her back, eyes wide, drinking up every flicker and flinch on her face. His hand slipped down her neck, resting when he cupped her breast. Gently, slowly he caressed her through her jumper. He was no virgin, in fact he and his wife had enjoyed a healthy, some might say adventurous, sex life when they were younger and yet this first base caress felt like one of the most erotic moments of his life. Was she enjoying him? She must be as it felt amazing. It felt important. It felt right.

  Stephanie felt everything was wrong. Her world was binary, black and white, yes and no, good and bad, beginnings and endings. Other people had shades of grey and flashes of colour. Not her.

  As, no doubt, Subhash was soaring – as the kiss filled him, sealed him, satiated him and encouraged him – she was devastated to acknowledge that the kiss failed to comfort her as entirely as she’d hoped. He could not block everything out. He simply accentuated a whole new stack of problems. Two wrongs simply made two wrongs. Damn it. She pulled away from him. Snapping their moment before it became something more solid.

  She collapsed back on the bed, lying across it rather than along it, she stared at the ceiling. Subhash lay down next to her and feigned an interest in the ceiling too. After some minutes had sauntered past he reached out to her, resting his finger gently on the inside of her elbow.

  ‘I need you, Stephanie,’ he whispered. She liked the way he said her name. He pronounced it in such a way that it was heavy with sincerity, and tonight especially she craved sincerity. ‘I want you to stay with me,’ he added.

  Stephanie sat up suddenly and searched around for her handbag. Once she located it she scrabbled inside it looking for a tissue and avoiding his eye. ‘I know you do,’ was the most honest thing she could reply. But how? How was that going to be possible? ‘I can’t have an affair,’ she stated solemnly. ‘I just can’t do it. Everyone else seems to find it so easy but not me.’

  She’d said this so many times that there was a strange comfort in the familiarity of the words. Of course, in the past they had meant a different thing. Was she now technically having an affair? she wondered. Over the months, when they’d met for the occasional lunch, a visit to the theatre and once or twice a walk along the barge route, she’d always been sure it wasn’t an affair because she hadn’t kissed him, she hadn’t been physically intimate with him on any level. She’d ignored the fact that she’d spilled the minutiae of her mind to him and he’d hoovered up her chatter, her stories, memories, gossip and musings. She’d ignored the fact that there had been an emotional intimacy. Did a kiss ruin her argument? Was she now an adulteress? The thought made her stomach churn again.

  ‘I mean, I can’t go on doing what we . . .’ Stephanie dropped her head into her hands, ‘What we nearly just did. What we haven’t done,’ she added eventually.

&nbs
p; ‘You can’t go on not doing it?’ he tried to clarify.

  ‘Yes, that’s it. I think.’

  ‘No. Of course not. I don’t want that either. I don’t want you to go on not doing what we nearly did.’

  Stephanie smiled despite herself. Even the semantics were difficult.

  ‘We have to be together,’ added Subhash with a gentle firmness that almost convinced Steph, almost comforted her. ‘Properly together.’

  ‘But how?’ she demanded. Was it an option? Was it a hope? ‘How?’ Hysteria and desperation had begun to creep into her voice, probably because she knew the answer to her own question.

  ‘You have to leave Julian,’ he whispered.

  ‘The children.’ Stephanie shook her head in anguish.

  ‘I’ll look after you all.’

  Steph wanted to believe him. She wanted someone to take control, to scoop her up and to take care of her. She wanted to feel safe and cherished as she had when her mother had tucked her into bed when she was a sleepy child. She’d like to be carried away. Somewhere far away. But it wasn’t that simple. Stephanie could not, would not, divorce. That was not the life she’d envisaged for her children, for herself. But how could she stay with Julian after what he’d done?

  ‘You have to divorce him,’ said Subhash confidently. ‘Because what else can you do now? It’s not as though he’s going to conveniently drop dead, is it?’

  ‘Don’t joke about such things, Subhash.’

  ‘I am not joking,’ he said seriously. ‘I’m facing the facts.’

  WEDNESDAY

  24

  Pip should probably hate herself. She really should. Probably. What kind of woman was she? What kind of friend? What kind of mother? With every question she demanded of herself, shame, embarrassment and a vague sense of self-loathing swelled up in her stomach, it pushed up through her body and then seemed to spurt out of her mouth and spill in the form of a scarlet blush across her cheeks and neck.